CONTENTS I
ETHICS
“There have been many introductions to ethics but none comes close to the clarity and student-friendliness that characterize Gensler’s Ethics: A Contempo-rary Introduction. The content is not only informative but also a pleasure to read. Gensler’s resourcefulness keeps producing engaging questions that hold the reader’s attention from cover to cover. Thoroughly researched and rigorously argued, this revised and amplified second edition will prove very valuable to lecturers of ethics and students for many years to come.”
Louis Caruana, S.J., Reader in Philosophy, Heythrop College, University of London “Gensler’s Ethics affords a concise and coherent account of the most significant frameworks of ethical thinking in contemporary ethics. It also offers readers a consistent and rigorous mode of analysis of each position. The text is replete with study questions and bibliographical resources. This second edition also adds a helpful new section on virtue ethics.”
James Swindal, Associate Professor and Chair of Philosophy, Duquesne University
Ethics introduces the issues and controversies of contemporary moral philoso-phy. It relates these to practical issues, especially racism, moral education, and abortion. It gives a practical method for thinking about moral issues, a method based largely on the golden rule. This second edition adds chapters on virtue ethics and natural law. It also updates the companion EthiCola instructional program, which can be downloaded from either of these two Web addresses:
http://www.jcu.edu/philosophy/gensler/ec http://www.routledge.com/textbooks/gensler
Harry J. Gensler, S.J., is Professor of Philosophy at John Carroll University in Cleveland. Some of his other books include Formal Ethics (1996), Ethics: Contemporary Readings (2004), Anthology of Catholic Philosophy (2005), Historical Dictionary of Logic (2006), Historical Dictionary of Ethics (2008), and Introduction to Logic, Second Edition (2010).
ii Ethics
Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy
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Classical Modern Philosophy Jeffrey Tlumak Classical Philosophy Christopher Schields Continental Philosophy Andrew Cutrofello Epistemology Third edition Robert Audi Ethics Second edition Harry J. Gensler Metaphysics Third Edition Michael J. Loux Philosophy of Art Noël Carroll Philosophy of Biology Alex Rosenberg and Daniel W. McShea Philosophy of Language Second edition William G. Lycan Philosophy of Mathematics Second edition James R. Brown Philosophy of Mind Second Edition John Heil Philosophy of Perception William Fish Philosophy of Psychology José Luis Bermudez
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CONTENTS III
ETHICS
A Contemporary Introduction
Second Edition
by Routledge This edition published 2011
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY10016 Simultaneously published in the UK
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© 2011 Harry J. Gensler
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
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in writing from the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gensler, Harry J., 1945–
Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction / Harry J. Gensler.—2nd ed. p. cm.—(Routledge contemporary introductions to philosophy)
Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Ethics—Textbooks. I. Title.
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ISBN: 978–0–415–80386–1 (hback: alk. paper) ISBN: 978–0–415–80388–5 (pback: alk. paper)
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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2011. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
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Contents v
Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
Philosophy 1 Study suggestions 4 Logical reasoning 2 Chapter summary 6 Moral philosophy 3 Study questions 6 Why study ethics? 4 For further study 7
Chapter 1: Cultural Relativism 8
Ima Relativist 8 Social science 13 Objections to CR 9 Chapter summary 14 Moral diversity 11 Study questions 15 Objective values 12 For further study 16
Chapter 2: Subjectivism 17
Ima Subjectivist 17 Chapter summary 24 Objections to SB 19 Study questions 24 Ima Idealist 21 For further study 25 Objections to IO 23
Chapter 3: Supernaturalism 26
Ima Supernaturalist 26 Ethics and religion 33 Knowing God’s will 28 Chapter summary 34 Ethics and atheists 30 Study questions 34 Socrates’s question 31 For further study 35 SN arguments 32
Chapter 4: Intuitionism 36
Ima Intuitionist 36 Reconstruction 43 Objective truths 38 Chapter summary 43 Self-evident truths 39 Study questions 44 Objections 41 For further study 44
Chapter 5: Emotivism 46
Ima Emotivist 46 Moderate emotivism 52 “Good” is emotional 47 Chapter summary 53 Moral reasoning 49 Study questions 54 Positivism problems 50 For further study 55 Other objections 51
Chapter 6: Prescriptivism 56
Ima Prescriptivist 56 Objections 61 Freedom and reason 57 Chapter summary 63 Moral reasoning 58 Study questions 64 Against Nazis 60 For further study 65
Chapter 7: Consistency 66
Avoiding an impasse 66 Why be consistent? 77 Consistency in beliefs 67 Chapter summary 78 Consistency in will 69 Study questions 79
Racist arguments 71 For further study 80 Impartiality 73
Chapter 8: The Golden Rule 81
A GR theorem 81 Why follow GR? 93 The literal rule 83 Chapter summary 95 Masochists 87 Study questions 95 GR questions 88 For further study 96
Chapter 9: Moral Rationality 97
Rationality conditions 97 Rationality questions 106 Rational desires 99 Chapter summary 107 GR and racism 100 Study questions 108 Moral education 104 For further study 109
Chapter 10: Consequentialism 110
Normative ethics 110 RU problems 121 Ima Utilitarian 111 Chapter summary 122 Consequentialisms 113 Study questions 123 Bizarre implications 115 For further study 124 Ima Rule-Utilitarian 117
Chapter 11: Nonconsequentialism 125
Ima Rossian 125 Ten commandments 134 Our basic duties 127 Chapter summary 136 Exceptionless norms 128 Study questions 138 Rights 131 For further study 138 Distributive justice 132
Chapter 12: Virtue 139
Socrates and Plato 139 Virtue and duty 149 Aristotle 141 Chapter summary 150 Virtue and Imas 144 Study questions 150 Virtue and GR 147 For further study 151
Chapter 13: Natural Law 152
Aquinas overview 152 Sexual morality 158 Aquinas’s axioms 154 Chapter summary 159 Controversies 155 Study questions 160 Double effect 156 For further study 161
Chapter 14: Synthesis Chapter 162
Nonconsequentialism 162 GR consistency 168 Consequentialism 164 Some questions 170 Metaethical views 166 Chapter summary 174 Virtue 167 Study questions 174 Natural law 167 For further study 175
Suggested Works 176
Bibliography 177
Glossary/Index 182
Preface
Ethics: A Contemporary In contemporary moral phil normative views. It relat education, and abortion. issues, a method based lar I wrote this book for u struggles. I aimed at stud courses. But the book sho is a brief introduction, I’v beginners; teachers can ela
I tried to relate the va While children are expe whether by parents or b themselves. But how can rational way? I take this to A typical chapter begi fictional student. The rea stand it on its own terms trying to encourage the re problems, instead of just a I’ve tried to be concise examples. And I’ve tried t While I’ve argued strongly concerned not that stude more deeply and arrive at The book contains v headings, boxes for key i readings, and a glossary Contemporary Readings (Rou I’m happy with how w I’ve got much positive fe And I’ve been very grat 倫理學入門 (Zhoubahen Désorcy), into Thai as into Persian as
Contents ix
ntroduction introduces the issues and controversies of osophy. It covers many of the basic metaethical and tes these to practical issues, especially racism, moral It gives a practical method for thinking about moral rgely on the golden rule.
undergraduate college students, with their interests and dents who have had one or two previous philosophy ould also be of interest to the general reader. Since this ve avoided complications that I thought would confuse
aborate further on particular points.
arious views to the student’s growth into adulthood. ected to parrot the moral views they were taught, by society, adults need to think out moral issues for
n we think out moral issues in the wisest and most o be the central question of moral philosophy.
ins with a clear and forceful defense of a view by a ader is invited to take the view seriously and under-s. Problems and objections come later. In all this, I’m eader to think critically—to clarify a view and look for
accepting what sounds good.
e, clear, and nontechnical. I’ve tried to use meaningful to show how different approaches can affect our lives. y against many views, I’ve tried to be fair-minded. I’m ents agree with me but that they think out the issues approaches that they can live by in a consistent way. various study aids: bolded technical terms, section
ideas, chapter summaries, study questions, suggested /index. I co-edited a companion anthology, Ethics: utledge 2004), with Earl Spurgin and James Swindal. well the first edition (1998) of this book was received.
eedback from teachers, students, and general readers. tified that the book was translated into Chinese as ng Danshile), into French as Questions d’éthique (M.-C.
(Jakaew Tanunath), and (Mehdi Akhavan). Several
selections are in the Portuguese reader A Arte de Pensar (Desidério Murcho) and the synthesis chapter was put into Turkish (Muhammet Enes Kala).
I improved this second edition. In response to suggestions, I added a chap-ter on virtue (which deals with Plato, Aristotle, the golden rule, and related controversies) and a chapter on natural law (which deals with Aquinas, double effect, sexual morality, and related controversies). I tweaked existing chapters, especially the ones on the golden rule (which now is clearer on key points), nonconsequentialism (which now has a expanded coverage of human rights, libertarianism, and socialism—and uses the right to health care as an example), and the final synthesis (which now has sections relating virtue and natural law to abortion). I expanded the bibliography and added a one-page appendix that suggests works for readers to pursue after mastering this book. I cut two things that got little use: the appendix on how to download and use the computer instructional program (the program is now so easy to download and use that this appendix isn’t needed) and the chapter outlines at the beginning of each chapter. So the book is about the same length as before. Finally, I rewrote and renamed the companion Windows-based instructional program, which has exercises on each chapter; the new EthiCola is easier to install and update, easier to use, and improved in many other ways. EthiCola (with a score-processing program, teacher manual, and class slides) can be downloaded for free from either of these Web addresses:
http://www.jcu.edu/philosophy/gensler/ec http://www.routledge.com/textbooks/gensler
The teacher manual and class slides are conveniently accessible from EthiCola’s HELP menu; so I suggest that you just install EthiCola (teachers should check the option to install the score processor too).
I wish to thank all who have somehow contributed to this second edition: the Routledge editorial staff and reviewers, my ethics students, and the many teachers, students, and self-learners who have e-mailed me over the years.
I hope you enjoy the book. I hope it deepens your appreciation of the golden rule. And I hope it helps you to think more clearly about one of life’s central questions: “How can we form our moral beliefs in the wisest and most rational way?”
Harry J. Gensler Philosophy Department John Carroll University Cleveland, OH 44118, USA http://www.jcu.edu/philosophy/gensler
Introduction
When we do moral philosophy, we reflect on how we ought to live. We ask what principles we ought to live by and why we should follow these principles instead of others. We study various views and try to sort through them rationally.
In this chapter, we’ll first consider the general nature of philosophy. Then we’ll focus on the main issues of moral philosophy and why we should be concerned about them.
A. Philosophy
To do philosophy is to reason about the ultimate questions of life—questions such as these:
• Is there a God?
• Are our actions free or determined?
• Are humans completely explainable in material terms? • How and what can we know?
• What is the nature and methodology of moral judgments? • What principles ought we to live by?
Such questions are difficult and controversial; we struggle with them. Often our answers are confused or implicit. Our answers, whether good or bad, give us a perspective for thinking and acting—a “world view.”
Philosophy deals with ultimate questions by reasoning about them. We first try to get clear on what the question is asking. Then we consider the range of possible answers. We criticize each one as brutally as we can, trying to uncover problems; we eliminate views that lead to absurdities. We look for the most adequate of the remaining views. If we can’t completely resolve the issue, at least we can hope to arrive at a well thought-out answer.
Other disciplines can deal with beliefs about ultimate questions. We can study the history of such beliefs, their psychological causes or stages, or how they relate to literature or religion. These approaches are valuable but don’t replace philosophy—which reasons and debates about the ultimate questions of life.
B. Logical reasoning
Before we discuss moral philosophy, we’d do well to consider a few ideas about reasoning and logic.
Reasoning in philosophy resembles reasoning in other areas. We often rea-son about things like who committed the murder, what car to buy, whether there’s a greatest prime number, or how to cure cancer. As we approach these issues, we clarify the question and gather background information. We review what others have said. We consider alternative views and objections to them. We make distinctions and weigh pros and cons. We sometimes do experiments. The climax of the process is when we take a stand and try to justify it. We explain that the answer must be such and such, and we point to other facts to justify our answer. This is logical reasoning, where we go from premises to a conclusion.
To reason logically is to conclude something from something else. For example, we conclude that the butler committed the murder from the beliefs that (1) either the butler or the maid did it, and (2) the maid didn’t do it. If we put reasoning into words, we get an argument—a set of statements consisting of premises and a conclusion:
Either the butler or the maid did it. The maid didn’t do it.
Á The butler did it.
B or M Not-M Á B
(Here “Á” is short for “therefore.”) This argument is valid, which means that the conclusion follows logically from the premises. If the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true. So if we can be confident of the premises, then we can be confident that the butler did it.
Calling an argument valid claims that the conclusion follows from the premises; it doesn’t say that the premises are true. To prove something, we also need true premises. If we give clearly true premises from which our conclusion logically follows, then we’ve proved our conclusion.
Philosophy involves much logical reasoning. The most common form of logical reasoning in philosophy attacks a view P by arguing that it leads to an absurdity Q:
If P is true, then Q would be true. Q is false.
Á P is false.
As we examine a view, we consider its logical implications and look for flaws. If we find clearly false implications, then we’ve shown that the view is false. And if we find highly doubtful implications, then we’ve cast doubt on the view. Either way, we’ve made progress.
As we develop our philosophical views, reasoning and personal commitment are both important. Reasoning alone won’t resolve all the disputes. After
considering the arguments on both sides, we have to make up our own minds. But if we pick a view with strong objections, then we have to respond to these.
C. Moral philosophy
To do moral philosophy (or ethics) is to reason about the ultimate questions of morality. We’ve mentioned the two central questions:
Metaethics:
What is the nature and metho-dology of moral judgments?
Normative Ethics: What principles ought we to live by?
Moral philosophy accordingly has two main branches.
Metaethics studies the nature and methodology of moral judgments. It asks questions like: What do “good” and “ought” mean? Are there moral truths? How can we justify or rationally defend beliefs about right and wrong?
A metaethical view often has two parts. One part is about the nature of moral judgments; this is often a definition of “good.” The other part is about methodology; this tells how to select moral principles. For example, cultural relativism has two parts:
• “Good” means “socially approved.”
• Pick your moral principles by following what your society approves of.
Cultural relativism bases morality on social conventions. Other views may base it on personal feelings, God’s will, or self-evident truths.
Normative ethics studies principles about how we ought to live. It asks questions like: What are the basic principles of right and wrong? What things in life are ultimately worthwhile? What would a just society be like? What makes someone a good (virtuous) person? What are the basic virtues and rights? Is abortion right or wrong?
Normative ethics has two levels. Normative ethical theory looks for very general moral principles, like “We ought always to do whatever maximizes the total pleasure for everyone.” Applied ethics studies specific moral issues like abortion or lying, or moral questions in areas like business or medicine. Both levels formulate and defend moral principles. They say things like “We ought to do such and such …”
Metaethics is the more basic branch of moral philosophy, since it studies how to select moral principles and thus how to do normative ethics. So we’ll start with metaethics. We’ll first talk about method and then later use this method to arrive at principles about how we ought to live. Our remaining chapters divide into four main groups:
• Chapters 1 to 3 consider three views popular among ordinary people: that morality is based on social conventions, personal feel-ings, or God’s will.
• Chapters 4 to 6 consider three views popular among philosophers: that morality is based on self-evident truths, emotional exclama-tions, or rational imperatives.
• Chapters 7 to 9 give a practical approach to moral rationality that stresses consistency and the golden rule.
• Chapters 10 to 13 consider four normative approaches: consequen-tialism, nonconsequenconsequen-tialism, virtue ethics, and natural law.
Chapter 14 is a synthesis chapter. It tries to unify our understanding of the views in this book, and what difference they make, by applying them to the hotly disputed topic of abortion.
D. Why study ethics?
I can think of three reasons to study moral philosophy—besides the fact that, for many of us, it’s very interesting.
First, moral philosophy can deepen our reflection on the ultimate questions of life. This is of value in itself, regardless of its practical benefits. If you haven’t wrestled with some of life’s deeper questions, then you aren’t a well-educated person.
Second, moral philosophy can help us to think better about morality. As we make moral judgments, we implicitly assume an approach to morality, or perhaps a confused mixture of approaches. Our approach, whether good or bad, whether defensible or not, gives us a perspective for thinking and acting. Moral philosophy can improve our perspective and make it more reflective and better thought out. So ethics is important because our choices are important.
As we grow up, we’re continually told what is good or bad, or what we ought or ought not to do. Our parents tell us this—as do our teachers, our friends, and the wider society. Eventually, we have to sort through these values and form our own moral beliefs. But how can we do this in the wisest and best way? That’s the central issue of moral philosophy.
A third goal is to sharpen our general thinking. When we do philosophy, we learn important intellectual skills. We learn to think rigorously about fundamen-tal questions, to understand and evaluate conflicting points of view, to express ideas clearly, and to reason in a careful way. These skills are valuable in real life, and philosophy can help to develop them like nothing else can.
E. Study suggestions
You’ll learn better if you grasp the structure of the chapters:
• Each chapter begins with a brief overview; then there are several content sections.
• Important terms are introduced in bold type. Learn each term and be able to give a definition. The Glossary/Index at the end of the book has a collection of definitions.
• A chapter summary reviews what you’ve read.
• Study questions ask about key ideas. Write out the answers and keep them in an “ethics folder.” Your teacher may want to collect these, to check your work and make suggestions.
• The last section of each chapter talks about computer exercises and further readings.
You’ll find that the study questions and computer exercises are useful tools to help you to learn the material.
Most chapters feature a presentation by a fictional student. In the next chapter, you’ll listen to the fictional “Ima Relativist” explain and defend cultural relativism. Take her view seriously and try to understand it. Make sure that you can explain it without distortion or slanted language. A good motto for doing philosophy is “Understand before you criticize.” After you under-stand the view, reflect on how plausible you find it and how well it accords with your own thinking. Then look for problems and objections.
Read the fictional presentation several times, from various perspectives. First read to get the general idea. Read it again to get the details; be sympathet-ic, as if you were listening to a friend explain her views. Read it again in a critical way; try to uncover weak points and objections. Finally, after you’ve discussed the view in class, read it again to see where you stand.
After each fictional presentation, I’ll bring up objections. Consider these carefully, and try to formulate them in your own words. Ask whether they are good objections, or whether they misunderstand the view or can be answered. You may have further objections yourself.
Practically every view, even a false one, can teach us something. If you reject a view, you may still want to incorporate some of its ideas into your own thinking. Or you may want to use the rejected view to help you to develop a sharply opposed perspective.
Relate the views to practical issues. Ask how a view would help you to argue against racist actions—or how it would lead you to teach morality to your children. Concrete applications can help us to understand philosophical views and see their practical relevance.
This book is an introduction to moral philosophy and isn’t meant to be the last word on the subject. There’s much more to say about all this; a more advanced book would be more complicated. The end of each chapter mentions further readings, in case you want to pursue matters further.
Moral philosophy is difficult and controversial. As you study it, you may at times feel perplexed and overwhelmed; this is a normal reaction. Radically opposed views can seem equally plausible, and a view that seems convincing at first can sometimes be demolished by a few well-placed objections. Don’t be discouraged; instead, try to make progress. You may not arrive at the final answers, but you can hope to improve your understanding of morality and to arrive at answers that are more adequate and better thought out.
F. Chapter summary
To do philosophy is to reason about the ultimate questions of life—questions like “Is there a God?” and “Are our actions free or determined?”
Philosophy reasons about such questions. We first try to get clear on what the question is asking. Then we consider the range of possible answers. We criticize each answer as brutally as we can; and we eliminate views that lead to absurdities. We look for the most adequate of the remaining views. If we can’t completely resolve the issue, at least we can hope to arrive at a well thought-out belief.
Reasoning about philosophical questions involves constructing arguments, which consist in premises and a conclusion. We aim for clearly true premises from which our conclusion logically follows. The most common way to reason attacks a view by showing that it logically implies things that are false or doubtful.
Moral philosophy reasons about the ultimate questions of morality. Moral philosophy has two parts:
• Metaethics studies the nature and methodology of moral judg-ments. It deals with what “good” means, whether there are moral truths, and how we can justify or rationally defend beliefs about right and wrong.
• Normative ethics studies principles about how we ought to live. It looks for norms about what is right or wrong, worthwhile, virtuous, or just.
Metaethics is more basic, since it studies how to select moral principles and thus how to do normative ethics.
In this book we’ll first consider various views about the nature and metho-dology of ethics. Then we’ll consider a practical approach to moral rationality that stresses consistency and the golden rule. Then we’ll deal with some issues of normative ethics. In studying moral philosophy, we’ll be wrestling with some of the great questions of life, refining our thinking about morality, and sharpen-ing our general thinksharpen-ing processes.
G. Study questions
Write out the answers in your ethics folder. If you don’t know an answer, go back to the section that deals with it.
1. What is philosophy? Give two examples of questions that philosophy deals with. (A)
2. If you had a previous philosophy course, what explanation or definition of “philosophy” did you learn? Give two philosophical issues that you dealt with.
3. What other subjects deal with ultimate questions? How does their approach differ from that of philosophy?
4. Philosophy reasons about ultimate questions. Explain what this “reason-ing” in a general sense involves. (B)
5. What is logical reasoning? What is an argument? What two things do we need to do to prove something?
6. What is the most common way to argue against a philosophical view? 7. What is moral philosophy? (C)
8. Explain the two basic questions of moral philosophy—and the difference between metaethics and normative ethics.
9. Why should we study moral philosophy? (D)
10. Who is Ima Relativist and how should we approach her view? (E)
H. For further study
To solidify your understanding, do the EthiCola exercise (see Preface) for “Ethics 00—Introduction.”
For a longer discussion of the nature of philosophy, see Audi’s “Philoso-phy.” For a more thorough introduction to logic, see Chapter 1 of Gensler’s Introduction to Logic.
You may at times want to consult other works and what they say about the various views; the Suggested Works appendix at the back of the book has some general suggestions. You may want to consult my Historical Dictionary of Ethics (Gensler and Spurgin) on particular points. My Ethics: Contemporary Readings (Gensler, Spurgin, and Swindal), which is intended to be a companion for this present book, gives related primary-source readings. The Bibliography at the end of the book has information on how to find these works.
1 Cultural Relativism
Cultural Relativism (CR): “Good” means “socially approved.” Pick your moral principles by following what your society approves of.
Cultural relativism (CR) says that good and bad are relative to culture. What is “good” is what is “socially approved” in a given culture. Our moral principles describe social conventions and must be based on the norms of our society. We’ll begin by listening to the fictional Ima Relativist explain her belief in cultural relativism. As you read this and similar accounts, reflect on how plausible you find the view and how well it harmonizes with your own thinking. After listening to Ima, we’ll consider various objections to CR.
1.1 Ima Relativist
My name is Ima Relativist. I’ve embraced cultural relativism as I’ve come to appreciate the deeply cultural basis for morality.
I was brought up to believe that morality is about objective facts. Just as snow is white, so also infanticide is wrong. But attitudes vary with time and place. The norms that I was taught are the norms of my own society; other societies have different ones. Morality is a cultural construct. Just as societies create different styles of food and clothing, so too they create different moral codes. I’ve learned about these in my anthropology class and experienced them as an exchange student in Mexico.
Consider my belief that infanticide is wrong. I was taught this as if it were an objective standard. But it isn’t; it’s just what my society holds. When I say “Infanticide is wrong,” this just means that my society disapproves of it. For the ancient Romans, on the other hand, infanticide was all right. There’s no sense in asking which side here is “correct.” Their view is true relative to their culture, and our view is true relative to ours. There are no objective truths about right or wrong. When we claim otherwise, we’re just imposing our culturally taught attitudes as the “objective truth.”
“Wrong” is a relative term, and thus needs a further reference to complete its sense. Let me explain what this means. Something isn’t “to the left”
absolutely, but only “to the left ofx” this or that. So “to the left” is a relative
term. Similarly, something isn’t “wrong” absolutely, but only “wrong in” this or that society. Infanticide might be wrong in one society but right in another. We can express CR most clearly as a definition: “X is good” means “The majority (of the society in question) approves of X.” Other moral terms, like “bad” and “right,” can be defined in a similar way. Note the reference to a specific society. Unless otherwise specified, the society in question is that of the person making the judgment. When I say “Hitler acted wrongly,” I mean “according to the standards of my society.”
The myth of objectivity says that things can be good or bad “absolutely”— not relative to this or that culture. But how can we know what is good or bad absolutely? And how can we argue about this without just presupposing the standards of our own society? People who speak of good or bad absolutely are absolutizing the norms of their own society. They take the norms that they were taught to be objective facts. Such people need to study anthropology, or to live for a time in another culture.
As I’ve come to believe in cultural relativism, I’ve grown in my acceptance of other cultures. Like many exchange students, I used to have this “we’re right and they’re wrong” attitude. I struggled against this. I came to realize that the other side isn’t “wrong” but just “different.” We have to see others from their point of view; if we criticize them, we’re just imposing the standards of our own society. We cultural relativists are more tolerant.
Through cultural relativism I’ve also come to be more accepting of the norms of my own society. CR gives a basis for a common morality within a culture—a democratic basis that pools everyone’s ideas and insures that the norms have wide support. So I can feel solidarity with my own people, even though other groups have different values.
Before going on, reflect on your reaction to cultural relativism. What do you like or dislike about it? Do you have objections?
1.2 Objections to CR
Ima has given us a clear formulation of an approach that many find attractive. She’s beginning to think about morality, and we can learn from her. Yet I’m convinced that her basic perspective on morality is wrong. Ima will likely come to agree as she gets clearer in her thinking.
Let me point out the biggest problem. CR forces us to conform to society’s norms—or else we contradict ourselves. If “good” and “socially approved” meant the same thing, then whatever was one would have to be the other. So this reasoning would be valid:
Such and such is socially approved. Á Such and such is good.
If CR were true, then we couldn’t consistently disagree with our society’s values. But this is an absurd result. We surely can consistently disagree with our society’s values. We can consistently affirm that something is “socially ap-proved” but deny that it is “good.” This would be impossible if CR were true. Ima could bite the bullet (accept the implausible consequence), and say that it is self-contradictory to disagree morally with the majority. But this would be a difficult bullet for her to bite. She’d have to hold that civil rights leaders contradicted themselves when they disagreed with accepted views on segrega-tion. And she’d have to accept the majority view on all moral issues—even if she sees that the majority is ignorant.
Suppose Ima learned that most people in her society approve of displaying intolerance and ridicule toward people of other cultures. She’d then have to conclude that such intolerance is good (even though this goes against her new insights):
Intolerance is socially approved. Á Intolerance is good.
She’d have to either accept the conclusion (that intolerance is good) or reject cultural relativism. Consistency would require that she change at least one of her views.
Here’s a bigger bullet for Ima to bite. Imagine that Ima meets a figure skater named Lika Rebel, who is on tour from a Nazi country. In Lika’s homeland, Jews and critics of the government are put in concentration camps. The major-ity of the people, since they are kept misinformed, support these policies. Lika dissents; she says these policies are supported by the majority but are wrong. If Ima applied CR to this case, she’d have to say something like this to Lika:
Lika, your word “good” refers to what is approved in your culture. Since your culture approves of racism and oppression, you must accept that these are good. You can’t think otherwise. The minority view is always wrong—since what is “good” is by definition what the majority approves.
CR is intolerant toward minority views (which are automatically wrong) and would force Lika to accept racism and oppression as good. These results follow from CR’s definition of “good” as “socially approved.” Once Ima sees these results, she’ll likely give up CR.
Racism is a good test case for ethical views. A satisfying view should give some way to attack racist actions. CR fails at this, since it holds that racist actions are good in a society if they’re socially approved. If Lika followed CR, she’d have to agree with a racist majority, even if they’re misinformed and ignorant. CR is very unsatisfying here.
Moral education gives another test case for ethical views. If we accepted CR, how would we bring up our children to think about morality? We’d teach them to think and live by the norms of their society—whatever these were. We’d teach conformity. We’d teach that these are examples of correct reasoning:
• “My society approves of A, so A is good.”
• “My peer-group society approves of getting drunk on Friday night and then driving home, so this is good.”
• “My Nazi society approves of racism, so racism is good.”
CR would make us uncritical about the norms of our society. These norms can’t be in error—even if they come from stupidity and ignorance. Likewise, the norms of another society (even Lika’s Nazi homeland) can’t be in error or be criticized. CR goes against the critical spirit that characterizes philosophy.
1.3 Moral diversity
CR sees the world as neatly divided into distinct societies. Each one has little or no moral disagreement, since the majority view determines what is right or wrong in that society. But the world isn’t like that. Instead, the world is a confusing mixture of overlapping societies and groups; and individuals don’t necessarily follow the majority view.
CR ignores the subgroup problem. We all belong to overlapping groups. I’m part of a specific nation, state, city, and neighborhood. And I’m also part of various family, professional, religious, and peer groups. These groups often have conflicting values. According to CR, when I say “Racism is wrong” I mean “My society disapproves of racism.” But which society does this refer to? Maybe most in my national and religious societies disapprove of racism, while most in my professional and family societies approve of it. CR could give us clear guidance only if we belonged to just one society. But the world is more complicated than that. We’re all multicultural to some extent.
And CR doesn’t try to establish common norms between societies. As technology shrinks the planet, moral disputes between societies become more important. Nation A approves of equal rights for women (or for other races or religions), but nation B disapproves. What is a multinational corporation that works in both societies to do? Or societies A and B have value conflicts that lead to war. Since CR helps very little with such problems, it gives a poor basis for life in the twenty-first century.
How do we respond to moral diversity between societies? Ima rejects the dogmatic “we’re right and they’re wrong” attitude. And she stresses the need to understand the other side from their point of view. These are positive ideas. But Ima then says that neither side can be wrong. This limits our ability to learn. If our society can’t be wrong, then it can’t learn from its mistakes. Understanding the norms of another culture can’t then help us to correct errors in our own norms.
Those who believe in objective values see the matter differently. They might say something like this:
There’s a truth to be found in moral matters, but no culture has a monopoly on this truth. Different cultures need to learn from each other. To see the errors and blind spots in our own values, we need to see how other cultures do things, and how they react to what we
do. Learning about other cultures can help us to correct our cultur-al biases and move closer to the truth about how we ought to live.
1.4 Objective values
We need to talk more about the objectivity of values. This is a large and important topic, and we’ll often return to it in later chapters.
The objective view (also called moral realism) claims that some things are objectively right or wrong, independently of what anyone may think or feel. Dr. Martin Luther King, for example, claimed that racist actions were objectively wrong. The wrongness of racism was a fact. Any person or culture that approved of racism was mistaken. In saying this, King wasn’t absolutizing the norms of his society; instead, he disagreed with accepted norms. He appealed to a higher truth about right and wrong, one that didn’t depend on human thinking or feeling. He appealed to objective values.
Ima rejects this belief in objective values and calls it “the myth of objectivi-ty.” On her view, things are good or bad only relative to this or that culture. Things aren’t good or bad objectively, as King thought. But are objective values really a “myth”? Let’s examine Ima’s reasoning.
Ima had three arguments against objective values. There can’t be objective moral truths, she thought, because
1. morality is a product of culture,
2. cultures disagree widely about morality, and 3. there’s no clear way to resolve moral differences. But these arguments fall apart if we examine them carefully.
(1) “Since morality is a product of culture, there can’t be objective moral truths.” The problem with this reasoning is that a product of culture can express objective truths. Every book is a product of culture; and yet many books express some objective truths. So too, a moral code could be a product of culture and yet still express some objective truths about how people ought to live.
(2) “Since cultures disagree widely about morality, there can’t be objective moral truths.” But the mere fact of disagreement doesn’t show that there’s no truth of the matter, that neither side is right or wrong. Cultures disagree widely about anthropology or religion or even physics. Yet there may still be a truth of the matter about these subjects. So a wide disagreement on moral issues wouldn’t show that there’s no truth of the matter on moral issues.
We might also question whether cultures differ so deeply about morality. Most cultures have fairly similar norms against killing, stealing, and lying. Many moral differences can be explained as the application of similar basic values to differing situations. The golden rule, “Treat others as you want to be treated,” is almost universally accepted across the world. And the diverse cultures that make up the United Nations have agreed to an extensive statement on basic human rights.
(3) “Since there’s no clear way to resolve moral differences, there can’t be objective moral truths.” But there may be clear ways to resolve at least many moral differences. We need a way to reason about ethics that would appeal to intelligent and open-minded people of all cultures and that does for ethics what scientific method does for science. We’ll work on this later, in Chapters 7 to 9.
Even if there were no solid way to know moral truths, it wouldn’t follow that there are no such truths. There may be truths that we have no solid way of knowing about. Did it rain on this spot 500 years ago today? There’s some truth about this, but we’ll never know it. Only a small percentage of all truths are knowable. So there could be objective moral truths, even if we had no solid way to know them.
So Ima’s attack on objective values fails. But this isn’t the end of the matter, for there are further arguments on the issue. The dispute over objective values is important, and we’ll talk more about it later. But before leaving this section, let me clarify some related points.
The objective view says that some things are objectively right or wrong, independently of what anyone may think or feel; but it still could accept much relativity in other areas. Many social rules clearly are determined by local standards:
• Local law: “Right turns on a red light are forbidden.” • Local rule of etiquette: “Use the fork only in your left hand.”
We need to respect such local rules; otherwise, we may hurt people, either by crashing their cars or by hurting their feelings. On the objective view, the demand that we not hurt people is a rule of a different sort—a moral rule—and not determined by local customs. Moral rules are seen as more authoritative and objective than government laws or rules of etiquette; they are rules that any society must follow if it is to survive and prosper. If we go to a place where local standards permit hurting people for trivial reasons, then the local stan-dards are mistaken. Cultural relativists would dispute this. They insist that local standards determine even basic moral principles; so hurting others for trivial reasons would be good if it were socially approved.
Respecting a range of cultural differences doesn’t make you a cultural rela-tivist. What makes you a cultural relativist is the claim that anything that is socially approved must thereby be good.
1.5 Social science
A popular stereotype says that all social scientists are cultural relativists. This is a false stereotype. Social scientists in fact hold a wide range of views on the foundations of ethics. Many reject CR. For example, the moral psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg saw CR as a relatively immature approach to morality, typical of teenagers and young adults.
Kohlberg claimed that we all, regardless of our culture, develop in our moral thinking through a series of stages. The first four go as follows:
1. Punishment/obedience: “bad” is what brings punishment. 2. Rewards: “good” is what brings you what you want.
3. Parental approval: “good” is what pleases Mommy and Daddy. 4. Social approval: “good” is what is socially approved.
Young children first think of morality in terms of punishment and obedience. Later they think more of rewards, and then parental approval. Still later, often in the teenage or early adult years, comes the CR stage. Here “good” is what is socially approved, first by the peer group, and then later by the larger society. Here it’s important to wear the right kind of clothes and listen to the right kind of music—where the “right kind” is whatever is socially approved. Many beginning college students struggle with these issues. This may be why they take CR so seriously—even though the view is implausible when we study it carefully.
What comes after cultural relativism, according to Kohlberg? Sometimes confusion and skepticism follow; indeed, an ethics course may promote these. Then we may move into stage 5 (which resembles the rule utilitarian view of Chapter 10) or stage 6 (which resembles the golden-rule consistency view of Chapters 7 to 9). Both stages try to evaluate conventional norms rationally. I don’t bring up Kohlberg to argue that, since his descriptive account is correct, hence CR is wrong. His account is controversial. Many psychologists propose a different sequence of moral stages or reject the idea of stages. And we’ve adequately demolished CR; we don’t need help from psychology. I mention Kohlberg, rather, because many people are pressured into accepting CR by the myth that all social scientists accept CR. But there’s no such consensus. Kohlberg and many other social scientists emphatically reject CR. They see it as an immature stage of moral thinking in which we just conform to society.
Kohlberg’s approach raises a problem about the meaning of “good.” People may mean different things at different stages; a young child by “good” may mean “what pleases Mommy and Daddy.” So we should see our quest in terms of what morally mature people mean by “good.” If our objections to CR are correct, then morally mature people by “good” don’t mean “socially ap-proved.”
1.6 Chapter summary
Cultural relativism holds that “good” means what is “socially approved” by the majority in a given culture. Infanticide, for example, isn’t good or bad objec-tively; rather it’s good in a society that approves of it but bad in one that disapproves of it.
Cultural relativists see morality as a product of culture. They think that societies disagree widely about morality and that we have no clear way to resolve the differences. They conclude that there are no objective values. Cultural relativists view themselves as tolerant; they see other cultures not as “wrong,” but as “different.”
Despite its initial plausibility, CR has many problems. For example, CR makes it impossible to disagree with the values of our society. We all at times want to say that something is socially approved but not good. But this is self-contradictory if CR is true.
In addition, CR entails that intolerance and racism would be good if society approved of them. And it leads us to accept the norms of our society in an uncritical way.
Cultural relativism attacks the idea of objective values. But these attacks fall apart if we examine them carefully.
Many social scientists oppose CR. The psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg, for example, claimed that people of all cultures go through the same stages of moral thinking. CR represents a relatively low stage in which we simply conform to society. At more advanced stages, we reject CR; we become critical of accepted norms and think for ourselves about moral issues. How to do that is the topic of this book.
1.7 Study questions
Write out the answers in your ethics folder. If you don’t know an answer, go back to the section that deals with it.
1. How does cultural relativism define “good”? What method does it follow for arriving at moral beliefs?
2. Ima grew up believing in objective values. What two experiences led her to embrace cultural relativism? (1.1)
3. When Ima rejected “objective values” or “the myth of objectivity,” what exactly did she reject? What does it mean to say that “good” is a relative term?
4. Why does cultural relativism supposedly make us more tolerant of other cultures?
5. What benefits does CR supposedly have for Ima’s society?
6. Write about a page sketching your initial reaction to cultural relativism. Does it seem plausible to you? What do you like and dislike about it? Can you think of any way to show that it’s false?
7. Why does CR make us conform to society’s values? Does CR seem plausible here? (1.2)
8. According to CR, what does “Tolerance is good” mean? Why doesn’t CR necessarily imply that tolerance is good?
9. Explain the story about “Lika Rebel”—and how it presents a problem for Ima’s approach.
10. How does CR apply to racism and to moral education? 11. Explain the subgroup problem. (1.3)
12. Can CR establish common norms between societies?
13. Sketch how a cultural relativist and a believer in objective values would answer this question: “Can learning about other cultures help us to cor-rect errors in the values of our own culture?”
14. What was Dr. Martin Luther King’s view about objective values? How did it differ from Ima’s? (1.4)
15. Explain and criticize Ima’s three arguments for rejecting objective values. 16. On the objective view, how do basic moral rules differ from rules of law
and etiquette?
17. Are all social scientists cultural relativists? How did the psychologist Kohlberg view cultural relativism? (1.5)
18. Sketch Kohlberg’s stages of moral development.
1.8 For further study
To solidify your understanding, do the EthiCola exercise (see Preface) for “Ethics 01—Cultural Relativism.”
What we call “cultural relativism” is sometimes called ethical relativism; the claim that different societies in fact disagree about basic moral norms is sometimes called descriptive relativism. To sort out the different types of “relativ-ism” in ethics, see Brandt’s “Ethical relativism.” For defenses of cultural relativism by prominent anthropologists, see Benedict’s brief “A defense of cultural relativism” or Sumner’s longer Folkways. Section 1.4 raised the problem of how to distinguish morality from other action guides, such as law and etiquette, which also say how we ought to live; Frankena’s “Two concepts of morality” discusses this further. For Kohlberg’s approach, see his brief “A cognitive-developmental approach to moral education” or his longer Essays on Moral Development. The Bibliography at the end of the book has information on how to find these works.
2 Subjectivism
Subjectivism (SB):
“X is good” means “I like X.”
Pick your moral principles by following your feelings.
Subjectivism (SB) says that moral judgments describe how we feel. To call something “good” is to say that we have a positive feeling toward it. The ideal-observer view is a further refinement; it says that moral judgments describe how we’d feel if we were fully rational.
In this chapter, we’ll listen to two fictional roommates, both named “Ima,” and both different from Ima Relativist of the previous chapter. Ima Subjectivist will defend subjectivism, and Ima Idealist will defend the ideal-observer view. We’ll also consider objections to the two views.
2.1 Ima Subjectivist
My name is Ima Subjectivist; but since my roommate is also named “Ima,” I usually go by the name “Sub.” I’ve embraced subjectivism as I’ve come to see that morality is deeply emotional and personal.
I took an anthropology course last year with some friends. We all came to believe in cultural relativism (CR)—the view that good and bad are relative to culture, that “good” means “socially approved.” Later I saw a big problem with CR, namely that it denies us the freedom to form our own moral judgments. Moral freedom is very important to me.
CR would force me to accept all of society’s values. Suppose that I found out that most people approve of racist actions; then I’d have to conclude that such actions are good. I’d contradict myself if I said “Racism is socially approved but not good.” Since CR imposes the answers from the outside and denies my freedom to think for myself on moral issues, I find CR repulsive. Growing up requires that we question our inherited values. Yes, we do get our values from society, at least initially. As children, we get values mostly through our parents and peer groups. But then we grow into adulthood. As we do so, we question the values that we’ve learned. We might accept these values, or we might reject them, or we might partly accept them and partly reject them. The choice is up to us.
Cultural relativists are correct in saying that “good” is a relative term; but it’s relative not to society but to the individual. When I say “This is good,” I’m talking about my own feelings—I’m saying “I like this.” My value judgments are about how I feel, not about how society feels. My value judgments describe my own emotions.
I see moral freedom as part of the process of growing up. We expect children to parrot the values they were taught; but adults who do this are stunted in their growth. We expect adults to think things out and form their own values. CR doesn’t let us do this. Instead, it makes us conform to society. Let me give an example of how subjectivism works. My family taught me a strict prohibition against drinking. In my family, any drinking was “socially prohibited.” But my college friends think it’s cool to drink heavily. In this group, heavy drinking is “socially demanded.” CR tells me to do what my society tells me—but which society? Should I follow my family or my friends? SB tells me to follow my feelings. So I sat down and thought about the conflicting norms and the reasons behind them. My family wanted to guard against the excesses of drinking, while my friends used drinking to promote fun and sociability. I have positive feelings about both goals, and I thought about how best to promote them. After reflection, my feelings became clear. My feelings said to drink moderately.
Heavy drinking may be “cool” (socially approved), but it often leads to fights, hangovers, alcoholism, unwanted pregnancies, and traffic deaths. I don’t like these consequences—and so I’m emotionally against heavy drinking. I say it’s bad. Many of my friends drink too much because this is socially approved. They behave like children. They blindly follow group values instead of thinking things out for themselves.
Let me explain some further points about SB. I said that “X is good” means “I like X.” Some subjectivists prefer another emotional term—such as “feel positively about,” “feel approval toward,” or “desire.” I won’t worry about which term is the most accurate.
The truth of SB is obvious from how we speak. We often say things like “I like it—it’s good.” The two phrases mean the same thing. And we ask “Do you like it?—Do you think it’s good?” Both ask the same question but in different words.
My roommate objects that we can say that we like things that aren’t good. For example, I say “I like smoking but it isn’t good.” But here I shift between evaluating the immediate satisfaction and evaluating the consequences. It would be clearer to say “I like the immediate satisfaction that I get from smoking (= the immediate satisfaction is good); but I don’t like the consequences (= the consequences aren’t good).”
SB holds that moral truths are relative to the individual. If I like X but you don’t, then “X is good” is true for me but false for you. We use “good” to talk about our positive feelings. Nothing is good or bad in itself, apart from our feelings. Values exist only in the preferences of individual people. You have your preferences and I have mine; no preference is objectively correct or incorrect. Believing this has made me more tolerant toward those who have different feelings and thus different moral beliefs.
My roommate protests that moral judgments make an objective claim about what is true in itself, apart from our feelings, and that subjectivism leaves this out. But objectivity is an illusion that comes when we objectify our subjective reactions. We laugh at a joke and call it “funny”—as if funniness were an objective property of things. We have a feeling of strangeness about something and call it “weird”—as if weirdness were an objective property. Similarly, we like something and call it “good”—as if goodness were an objective property of the thing. We subjectivists aren’t fooled by this grammatical illusion. The objectivity of values is a myth and needs to be rejected.
In practice, everyone follows their feelings in moral matters. But only we subjectivists are honest enough to admit this and avoid the pretense of objectivity.
Reflect on how you react to this view. Do you have objections?
2.2 Objections to SB
Sub (Ima Subjectivist) has given us a clear formulation of an important approach to morality. I agree with his stress on moral freedom and his rejection of cultural relativism (and of any other view that denies our moral freedom). But I disagree with his analysis of “good.” And I think he needs to develop his thinking about moral rationality.
The biggest problem is that subjectivism makes goodness depend complete-ly on what we like. If “X is good” and “I like X” mean the same thing, then this reasoning is valid:
I like X. Á X is good.
Suppose that Sub’s irresponsible friends like to get drunk and hurt people. Then they can deduce that such actions are good:
I like getting drunk and hurting people. Á Getting drunk and hurting people is good.
But this reasoning isn’t correct: the conclusion doesn’t follow. SB gives a very crude approach to morality, whereby we simply do as we like.
Even worse, my likes and dislikes would make things good or bad. Suppose that I liked hurting people; that would make it good to hurt people. Or suppose that I became a teacher who likes to flunk students just for fun; that would make it good to flunk students just for fun. Whatever I liked would thereby become good—even if my liking came from stupidity and ignorance.
Racism is a good test case for ethical views. SB is unsatisfying here, since it says that hurting other races is good if I like to do it. And SB implies that Hitler spoke the truth when he said “The killing of Jews is good” (since his statement
just meant that he liked the killing of Jews). So SB has bizarre implications about racism.
Moral education gives another test case. If we accepted SB, how would we bring up our children to think about morality? We’d teach them to follow their feelings, to go by their likes and dislikes. We’d teach children that “I like hurting people—therefore hurting people is good” is correct reasoning. So SB has bizarre implications about moral education.
So it’s easy to poke holes in subjectivism. Why then does the view seem so plausible? One reason is that what we like tends to correspond with what we think good. SB explains this: calling something “good” just means that we like it. But other explanations are possible. Maybe we’re motivated to like what our minds discover (perhaps through reason or religion) to be good. So other views can explain the close connection between what we like and what we think good.
If we’re morally immature, as we often are, the correspondence may fail. We may like things that we think bad, such as hurting other people. Morality is supposed to constrain our likes and dislikes. The thought that hurting others is bad can keep us from doing it, although we’d like to do it. So we can’t identify what is good with what we like—even though the two would correspond closely if we were morally mature.
Not many philosophers today hold subjectivism. Some who have SB tendencies have moved to emotivism, which differs in a subtle way. These two views interpret “good” as follows:
• Subjectivism: “X is good” means “I like X.” • Emotivism: “X is good” means “Hurrah for X!”
Emotivism (which we’ll take in Chapter 5) says that moral judgments are emotional exclamations and not truth claims; this is much like SB but harder to refute. Others with SB tendencies have moved to the ideal-observer view, which takes “good” to refer not to our actual feelings but to how we’d feel if we were fully rational; this approach combines reason and feeling. We’ll hear about this view in the next section.
Sub talked about our freedom to form our own moral beliefs. But he didn’t say how to use this freedom in a responsible way. He said we need to follow our feelings. But he didn’t say how to develop wise feelings. Our next view tries to deal with these deficiencies by bringing in a richer view of moral rationality.
Ideal-Observer View (IO):
“X is good” means “We’d desire X if we were fully informed and had impartial concern for everyone.” Pick your moral principles by trying to become as informed and impartial as possible, and then seeing what you desire.
2.3 Ima Idealist
My name is Ima Idealist. I’ve embraced the ideal-observer view as I’ve come to see the need to combine feelings with reason in our moral thinking.
Feelings and reason are both part of life; they should work together in everything we do. Take the example of grammar. Before I turn in an essay, I read it over looking for grammatical errors. My feelings alert me to such errors; when a sentence causes me distress, that tips me off that it may be ungrammat-ical. Of course, my feelings about grammar have been trained over the years by reason—by rules and examples. So my sense of grammar combines feelings with reason. Every aspect of life should combine these two.
You might know my roommate, Ima Subjectivist. Since we both have the same first name, which gets confusing, I just call him “Sub.” Now Sub has some fine ideas, but they lack balance. He preaches “Follow your feelings” all the time. Now this advice isn’t bad if you have wise and rational feelings. But the advice is very bad if your feelings are foolish.
I followed Sub’s advice, and it led to problems. I followed my feelings about eating—and I gained fifty pounds. I followed my feelings about when to attend class—and I nearly flunked out of school. I insulted people when I felt like doing so—and I alienated myself from others. Now I don’t like what I did. In retaliation against Sub for his bad advice, I put this sign on our wall:
If we just do as we like, we soon won’t like what we’ve made of our lives.
We need to train our feelings instead of following them blindly. For example, I used to like smoking, overeating, and insulting people. But I saw that these weren’t good things to like—and so eventually I came to dislike them.
We need to combine feelings with rationality. My motto now is “Develop rational moral feelings first—and then follow your feelings.” But how, you may ask, do we develop rational moral feelings? I have two suggestions:
1. Be informed: Base your feelings and decisions on a correct assess-ment of the situation.
2. Be impartial: Make your moral judgments from an impartial stand-point that shows concern for everyone.
Rational moral feelings are feelings that are informed and impartial.
Moral judgments don’t describe our actual feelings, our momentary im-pulses, what we happen to like at the moment. Instead, moral judgments describe how we’d feel if we were fully rational in our feelings. “X is good” means “We’d desire X if we were fully informed and impartial.” This approach is called the ideal-observer view. On this approach, we pick our moral principles by trying to be as informed and impartial as possible, and then seeing how we feel.
My friend Sub was puzzled that we can say “I like smoking but it isn’t good.” He had a convoluted explanation of why this statement makes sense. My
explanation is better. “Liking” is about our actual feelings; “good” is about how we’d feel if we were rational. Here our pro-smoking impulses conflict with what we’d feel from a rational perspective (which includes knowing and taking account of the harmful consequences of smoking).
Let me explain my view in another way. An ideal observer is an imaginary person of supreme moral wisdom—a person who is fully informed and has impartial concern for everyone. To call something “good” means that we’d desire it if we were ideal observers. Of course, we’ll never be ideal observers, since we’ll always have some ignorance and bias. But the notion of an ideal observer is useful, since it gives a vivid picture of moral wisdom and a way to understand the meaning and methodology of moral judgments.
Let me explain how to make moral judgments in a rational way. First, we need to be informed. We need to know about circumstances, alternatives, and consequences. We need to avoid factual errors. Our moral judgments are less rational if they aren’t based on a correct understanding of the situation. Of course, we can’t know everything; but we can strive for greater knowledge.
The second element of rational moral thinking is impartiality. Moral judg-ments involve impartial feelings. When we make moral judgjudg-ments, we take an impartial perspective that shows concern for everyone. We need this perspec-tive to regulate our selfish inclinations, so that we can try to live together in peace and harmony.
Impartiality shows the errors in subjectivism further. On subjectivism, “X is good” means “I like X”—so this way of reasoning is correct:
I like getting drunk and hurting people. Á Getting drunk and hurting people is good.
But this reasoning is incorrect. The conclusion misuses “good,” since this word describes what we’d desire if we were fully informed and impartial. The conclu-sion clearly doesn’t show an impartial concern for everyone. Society would fall apart if everyone followed the subjectivist model of moral reasoning—where we just do what we like, regardless of how this affects other people.
Here’s an example of how to apply my view. Suppose that you are elected to Congress. On what basis do you appraise a proposed law as “good,” and thus as worthy of your vote? Cultural relativism tells you to go with what the majority favors; but the majority can be ignorant, or swayed by propaganda and lies. Subjectivism tells you to follow your feelings; but your feelings can be ignorant or biased. My view tells you to form your values in a way that is factually informed and impartially concerned for everyone. This would give a better basis for democracy.
My view gives objective ways to criticize racist moral beliefs. Suppose that we’re evaluating the moral rationality of a Nazi who believes that he ought to put Jews in concentration camps. The Nazi likely violates our “Be informed” condition, since he likely bases his attitudes on factual errors or ignorance: • His attitudes may be based on factual errors. Maybe he falsely